The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
Book 13
I saw this for the first time at the Library’s Used Book Store shortly after its release. The story is about a girl that picks up on other people’s feeling by eating the food they cook. Cool premise, but it was worth $10 on Amazon, so I listed it. It sold. I saw it later in the audio book section of the library. Dare I borrow an audio that I don’t have at home? What if I love it?
It was decent. Which is funny because the reviews on Goodreads are very Love it or Hate it. Bender does a good job with the Down Side of a Superpower bit, but there isn’t a single incident of the kid eating something in a calcuated way to ascertain some piece of private information for her own purposes.
SPOILERS
The family dynamic is weird. Desperately unhappy mother, a character that I never found as sympathetic as I expect was intended. Desperately unhappy older brother. Seemingly normal, if clueless father. There are hints that the brother might also have some kind of “gift”, and I didn’t really like how his story played out. But one of the later revelations – that the supernatural stuff came down from the dad’s side – rather tied it together to make some sense.
I was engaged with the narrative nearly the entire time, but it was in spite of the audio. I am sorry to say this was my first bad experience with the author doing the reading. The characters in Bender’s voice sounded whiny. I am certain they would have been less so in the privacy of my own head. On the plus side, though, I understand from the reviews that Bender neglects punctuation in her dialog and I didn’t have to deal with that in the audio.
Overall, I am glad I went for it.
The Next Dark Age 